


i'm quitting i swear it

by wtfmulder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 03:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9639491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtfmulder/pseuds/wtfmulder
Summary: Scully and Reyes share a smoke break. Mild, mild Scully/Reyes and milder allusions to postpartum depression.





	

She knows - she knows she shouldn’t be doing this, especially when there’s no real stressor to blame it on. But God help her it feels so good, blowing smoke into the oppressive D.C. fog, wrapped up in her sexy leather jacket.

  
When a flash of red catches in her peripheral vision, the customary shame filters on through and the tips of her fingers burn like she’s pinched off the ash with her bare hands.

  
“Still trying to quit,” she grins sheepishly. “Nasty, nasty habit.”

  
But Dana’s got this faraway look in her eye, a habit she’s had as long as Monica’s known her. It seems so at odds with her nature. Type A, INTJ Dana. There should be nowhere for her to look but right here. But it’s the Pisces sun in her, forever trapped swimming in her divine discontent.

  
Dana huddles in her fluffy woolen coat and the movement causes their shoulders to brush only slightly. Monica’s lips curl around her cigarette, a pleased little tick. The stench of formaldehyde wafts from the redhead in nauseating shimmers, but Monica finds that she doesn’t mind.

  
“I just checked in on the body you sent over,” Dana says through chattering teeth. She looks colder than she normally is, smaller too. “Sorry to disappoint, but all signs point to cardiac arrest. That’s what I’m listing as the official cause of death.”

  
Monica chews on this for a moment, holding the butt of her cigarette against her lips. All of this is fine. She hadn’t expected that the autopsy would give any conclusive results, seeing as murder isn’t the crime here, but it’s good to know.

  
“The live birds in his stomach had nothing to do with his death?”

  
“It appears as if they arrived there postmortem,” Scully shrugs. “There were no signs of predation, no entry wounds, no mutilation to indicate that the birds were placed there by force. You’ve got a bona fied X-File, here.” She slips the file into Monica’s outstretched hand. “The birds were shipped to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife forensics laboratory for genetic sampling. Our veterinary lab couldn’t make an I.D.”

  
Flipping through the pictures in the file, looking at the bloated corpse, the lacerated stomach all dried up and hollowed out like cozy nest, Monica can’t help but cringe. “Will they keep the birds alive?”

  
“I’m not sure,” says Dana dreamily. She’s gone again for the moment. But then she lifts her chin to hold Monica’s gaze with startling clarity. “Could I bum one of those off of you?”

  
Monica thinks about laughing awkwardly and shaking her head, or putting her serious face on and cupping Dana’s lovely face in her large, warm hands. She wants to say no but she knows better, knows the importance of escapism to a Pisces. The pair exchange the cigarette without a hitch and Scully lets it hang from her mouth while Monica holds her shoulder steady with one hand and lights the cigarette with the other.

  
They spend some time in comfortable silence, listening to each other inhale, exhale, letting each other’s smoke cloud their vision and keep them warm. Dana rarely gets a good lunch break and Monica is a little touched to be spending it with her. She wonders what Dana does in her spare time, silently hopes it’s gardening.

  
“I look at his face,” Dana says suddenly, jerkily flicking ash onto the pavement. “I look into my own son’s face and I - I -” she chokes, “ - and sometimes I don’t feel anything.”

  
Oh Dana, she wants to say. Wants to wrap the brilliant woman in her arms and kiss her forehead and -- what? Talk about hope? That seems inappropriate for whatever’s happening here and this brutal realization keeps her quiet, still, and sad.

  
“What kind of mother am I?” Dana sobs softly. You’re a great one, a strong one, a tragic one, you are meant for growing things and loving things and Dana do you keep a garden because I think –

  
“I’m sorry.” Scully wipes her eyes and shakes her head. “Those birds, I don’t know. Sometimes I feel them too. And they’re not supposed to come out.” She frowns at her barely smoked cigarette and passes it to Monica with an apologetic sigh. “I thought I would feel it.”

  
Monica isn’t sure what she means by that, but she hopes Dana feels it soon. As for her, her own cigarette is cashed. Scully’s cigarette is waxy from her lipstick and Monica breathes it into the D.C. fog.

 


End file.
